Sometimes, death penalty just feels right

The botched execution of Clayton Lockett was a brutal reminder of why I hate the death penalty. I've always thought capital punishment was more an act of state-sponsored retribution than the kind of justice that should spring from this nation's courts.

I'm morally opposed to the idea of a government using murder as the ultimate penalty for a crime. That 32 of this country's 50 states believe murder, ordered by a judge or jury, is a proper way to mete out justice is the greatest imperfection of our democratic system.

My intellect tells me that the death penalty is a codified act of bestiality, more befitting of a mob than the criminal justice system of our "more perfect union."

By all accounts, Lockett suffered greatly. The deadly cocktail of drugs administered to him in an Oklahoma prison left Lockett contorting on a gurney and struggling to speak, after he had been officially declared unconscious. One hour and 44 minutes after his execution began; Lockett suffered a massive heart attack and died.

But when I read the details of how Lockett killed Stephanie Neiman my philosophical objection to capital punishment gives way to an understanding of the desire for revenge. Revenge, after all, is what the death penalty is really all about. It serves no purpose other than to satisfy society's yearning to get even.

Still, the crassness of Oklahoma's botched effort to kill Lockett pales in comparison to what he did to Neiman, who was just 19 the night in June 1999 when Lockett made her look on as one of his two accomplices, Shawn Mathis, dug her grave. Lockett shot Neiman as she was forced to stand in the hole. And in a final unforgivable act, he ordered Mathis to bury her alive. For their part, Mathis and Lockett's cousin, Alfonzo Lockett, were sentenced to life.

Too often people are given the death penalty simply because a jury finds them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But as we have seen over and over again, such a less-than-conclusive legal test has put a lot of innocent people on death row - a fact that fuels my objection to capital punishment.

However, in Lockett's case there was no doubt of his guilt. He admitted to killing Neiman in the most heinous way and apologized to her family, his stepmother said during an interview on MSNBC.

As his date with death neared, Lockett told his stepmother he worried that the untested lethal drugs Oklahoma would administer him might make him suffer.

Given what he did to Neiman, I don't think he suffered enough.

I know it will surprise a lot of my liberal friends to hear this from me. But my objection to the death penalty has never been absolute. It is rooted in a belief that racial bias often influences who is sentenced to death and who gets a lighter sentence for a similar crime.

Also, I think the burden of proof in a capital punishment case leaves too much room for jurors to make a wrong decision. And as long as it does, I will continue to side, generally, with those who clamor for an end to the death penalty.

But when it comes to the awful, gut-wrenching things Lockett admitted doing to Neiman, I am convinced by H.L. Mencken's argument that the death penalty sometimes is an appropriate punishment. When the crime is serious enough, the Sage of Baltimore once said, "Christianity is adjourned, and even saints reach for their side arms."

What the state of Oklahoma did to Lockett was awful. But I shed no tears for the monster who killed Stephanie Neiman.

DeWayne Wickham is dean of Morgan State University's School of Global Journalism and Communication.

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Sometimes, death penalty just feels right

The botched execution of Clayton Lockett was a brutal reminder of why I hate the death penalty. I've always thought capital punishment was more an act of state-sponsored retribution than the kind of

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